Millennium:I think there may actually be something to this, though not in the way Slate spins it.

Over the past few decades, but especially the most recent, those in power among the liberals have done an excellent job of convincing the rank and file that the opposition is unthinking, greedy, hateful, dishonest, delusional... in a word, evil in the mustache-twirling villain sense. Conservative media should have taken up the task of disproving this Big Lie, but has instead, to put it mildly, played directly into it. We lost because the people see us as wolves, and now we have to prove that we are not, going up against the mountains of evidence that our own media did more work to provide than theirs did to gather.

I'm watching a Fox News show discussing media right now. They're blaming the libal media,immigrants and welfare moochers for Romneys loss. The only lesson they'll learn from this is to double down until they're waving to the Whig Party as they pass each other in the night.

Notabunny:Millennium: I think there may actually be something to this, though not in the way Slate spins it.

Over the past few decades, but especially the most recent, those in power among the liberals have done an excellent job of convincing the rank and file that the opposition is unthinking, greedy, hateful, dishonest, delusional... in a word, evil in the mustache-twirling villain sense. Conservative media should have taken up the task of disproving this Big Lie, but has instead, to put it mildly, played directly into it. We lost because the people see us as wolves, and now we have to prove that we are not, going up against the mountains of evidence that our own media did more work to provide than theirs did to gather.

This is my favorite article on the subject.

That was a good analysis that I whole-heartedly agree with.

The conservatives have successfully convinced their supporters that the conservative media is the only place to get the truth and everything else is a lie.

I disagree with the bolded portion. Behind the Republicans being firmly up their own ass and ignoring reality, the next biggest problem is that no one really liked Romney. They danced around nominating him during the primaries, but their motivation for voting for Romney had more to do with voting against Obama than supporting any of Romney's policies. Though the willingness to swallow all of Romney's bullshiat was a bit disheartening, but I guess that's what Republicans have come to.

then consider that they had a passionate hatred of Obama and channeled that into support for Romney.

When I pointed out to a friend that the Republican Party did not seem particularly enamored with Romney and only gave him the nomination because the rest of the potential nominees look like they'd come out of a clown car, she said that, yeah, at first she did not like Romney, but after "hearing him speak" she determined that she DID like him.

She also told me that he was a great statesman who did great things in Massachusetts.

Weaver95:to my knowledge, Limbaugh has STILL not mentioned Nate Silver since election night. Remember that Limbaugh spent 6 weeks harshly berating Nate Silver and calling him all sorts of names. Rush 'proved' Nate Silver wrong, and did so at least 5 or 6 times. Now that the data is in and Nate Silver was proven right, Limbaugh hasn't said thing one about the guy.

Fairly standard response to inconvenient evidence no matter what part of the spectrum: Selective Exposure (tuning it out of your field of attention), or worse, pretend you never said anything and deny it if anyone brings it up.

There's also signs of inferred justification ("Romney SHOULD have won; therefore, Obama must have suppressed the GOP vote") or disputing rationality ("Facts still don't matter"), though there's a lot more attitude bolstering ("We still believe, because this, that, and the other" -- leaving the election outcome aside).

Stone Meadow:Glad I refreshed the page, because I came to make this point. In fact, I read yesterday (did I see it on Fark?) a conservative op/ed piece that said the GOP needed to drop their opposition to immigration reform, abortion and same sex marriage like...tomorrow, and concentrate on fiscal responsibility and small government if they are to avoid catastrophic losses in 2014 and 2016.

That will never work. The Republicans are a crony capitalistic party that uses religious social issues in order to convince poor people to vote against their own self-interest. The only reason religious types believe in trickle down theory is because the party of God says that trickle down theory works. But if the GOP stops crusading against same sex marriage, then they're no longer the party of God.

Take religious pandering and racism out of the equation, and they're left with nothing. The party would still appeal from the Mitt Romney types who lived privileged lives and who actually benefit from the crony capitalism, but it would not appeal to everyone else.

tdpatriots12:Nowadays conservatives run away from arguments with me really quick once they're confronted with the fact I know their own bullshiat better than they do. Having been duped by it for so long, I'm also fairly contemptuous of it as a result. Though I'm terrible at creating converts like myself. I never know where to start. How do you explain to someone everything they think they know about history and politics is simply not true?

It all boils down to humility. They have none. The people who have stuck with the republicans are people who genuinely believe that they are the superior thinking, working, moral class. And everyone else is a Godless uneducated moocher who wants free handouts.

Modern Republicans have a lot in common with the wanna-be facebook model, the girl who thinks she's "all that" because she posts trashy photos of herself in revealing attire. How do you convince her that she's not "all that?" How do you burst that bubble?

It's not something that will ever happen through reasoned discussion. It's something that can only happen with a rude awakening. Don't be afraid to go for the jugular, and don't be afraid to call them out on their bullshiat. Most of the outspoken conservatives I meet are bullies who aren't used to people standing up to them, and their world dies a little every time that someone does.

schrodinger:Stone Meadow: Glad I refreshed the page, because I came to make this point. In fact, I read yesterday (did I see it on Fark?) a conservative op/ed piece that said the GOP needed to drop their opposition to immigration reform, abortion and same sex marriage like...tomorrow, and concentrate on fiscal responsibility and small government if they are to avoid catastrophic losses in 2014 and 2016.

That will never work. The Republicans are a crony capitalistic party that uses religious social issues in order to convince poor people to vote against their own self-interest. The only reason religious types believe in trickle down theory is because the party of God says that trickle down theory works. But if the GOP stops crusading against same sex marriage, then they're no longer the party of God.

Take religious pandering and racism out of the equation, and they're left with nothing. The party would still appeal from the Mitt Romney types who lived privileged lives and who actually benefit from the crony capitalism, but it would not appeal to everyone else.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to convince anyone that the GOP is going to actually change its ways. Just that at some level it IS asking itself the right questions. In any case we'll know in a matter of weeks which way they'll go. The fiscal cliff is looming large...

If Republicans want a chance in hell of ever winning the White House again, the first thing they need to do is realize that women, gays, believers in science, secularists and non-white people are all voters to be courted, not threats to campaign against.

Goddess of Atheism:If Republicans want a chance in hell of ever winning the White House again, the first thing they need to do is realize that women, gays, believers in science, secularists and non-white people are all voters to be courted, not threats to campaign against.

shastacola:This is the most delicious irony of the GOP's slow crawl toward irrelevance since their embrace of the southern strategy,They're forced to "dance with one that brung ya", and it's going to destroy them.

The problem is that they're in such denial that they've repeatedly denied that the Southern Strategy ever happened. Pat Buchanan, one of the architects of the Southern Strategy denied it right around the time that Ken Mehlman apologized for it. Currently, Ann Coulter's new book is claiming that the Republicans are and have always been the party of the civil rights movement.

Girl From The North Country:You would have thought that this election would have snapped them out of their echo chamber. They have to realize they were being fed a false narrative.

I have a friend who is a huge Glenn Beck fan. He is otherwise a very smart, analytical type. If this doesn't wake him up then I will have lost all hope. He honestly believes he 'knows' Glenn, a true patriot, who would do anything to save this country from the Socialist. Not an 'entertainer' who makes millions off of scaring people about the various atrocities that the Dems want to inflict upon them for all eternity.

Maybe the gold-scam thing might open his eyes? Glenn has been really really lucky to avoid chargesover the massive false advertising of gold he was involved in.

Stone Meadow:Weaver95: MacWizard: The article's lede: "When Republicans perform a full autopsy on the 2012 elections, they'll realize they only deluded themselves"

Ain't gonna happen anytime soon. They ran an quick post-mortem and decided that the obvious problem was that they simply weren't conservative enough.

yeah but its early yet. i'm sure that right now a bunch of elite GOP inner circle members are sitting around a table somewhere and having a frank, no bullshiat discussion about what they're gonna do for 2014. they got their asses beat and they know it. propaganda aside, they KNOW they lost big and I very strongly suspect that it's shocking enough to force them to confront a reality they're not very fond of admitting exists in the first place.

strange times indeed for the GOP. they might actually be desperate enough to move back to the center.

Glad I refreshed the page, because I came to make this point. In fact, I read yesterday (did I see it on Fark?) a conservative op/ed piece that said the GOP needed to drop their opposition to immigration reform, abortion and same sex marriage like...tomorrow, and concentrate on fiscal responsibility and small government if they are to avoid catastrophic losses in 2014 and 2016. So, the introspection is going on, but it remains to be seen whether the party as a whole embraces it, or if the Teahadist wing calling for them to go even further rightward will prevail.

Probably this, if they have their way. As things stand right now, they're the ones making the most noise, and squeaky wheel and all that. They're the ones saying they lost because they weren't conservative enough; and the ones saying they need to stick to their values. It seems obvious to normal people that America is becoming too polarized and that f*ck-you politics aren't going to work much longer; but these aren't normal people, they're ideologues, and the only way they know to act is to get even more polarized.

Gyrfalcon:Stone Meadow: So, the introspection is going on, but it remains to be seen whether the party as a whole embraces it, or if the Teahadist wing calling for them to go even further rightward will prevail.

Probably this, if they have their way. As things stand right now, they're the ones making the most noise, and squeaky wheel and all that. They're the ones saying they lost because they weren't conservative enough; and the ones saying they need to stick to their values. It seems obvious to normal people that America is becoming too polarized and that f*ck-you politics aren't going to work much longer; but these aren't normal people, they're ideologues, and the only way they know to act is to get even more polarized.

Vegemite:soaboutthat: i upped my meds-up yours: It could be that they'll just go full entertainment, dop the pretense of news analysis and do nothing but crazy Limbovian / Beckesque rant sauce. This would be win-win for the stupids and the rest of us, as anyone with half a brain tunes it out.

Rush or Beck can't turn a rant into an email campaign to Congress these days; their shows are meant for potato-chip-and-bourbon jack-off sessions, and their listeners know it.

You leave bourbon out of this. Bourbon did nothing to you. It's more like a potato-chips and bud light jack-off session.

FloydA:i upped my meds-up yours: It could be that they'll just go full entertainment, dop the pretense of news analysis and do nothing but crazy Limbovian / Beckesque rant sauce. This would be win-win for the stupids and the rest of us, as anyone with half a brain tunes it out.

Rush or Beck can't turn a rant into an email campaign to Congress these days; their shows are meant for potato-chip-and-bourbon jack-off sessions, and their listeners know it.

WordyGrrl:So what does the GOP define as "truly conservative?" If implying that all women are stupid whores and all minorities are welfare leeches wasn't enough, what else must one do to be "more conservative?"

daveUSMC:Count me as one of the conservative/libertarian Republicans who has been trying to fight the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter Axis of Turditry for years.

I've put in hours trying to convince my GOP friends to ditch this crowd, and believe it or not, I think with this election proving me right, some of them are starting to listen. I was president of my College Republicans club a few years ago, and while I fully admit my youthful douchebaggery, I have to say I remain hopeful that we can free ourselves from the self-contained echo-chamber infotainment bubble.

Good for you. I believe that this may be, once the butthurt subsides, an opportunity for conservatives like you and liberals like me to reach out to some of these people who've been brainwashed and ... well, disenfranchised by the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter Axis of Turditry (good name there, I LOL'd) for so long.

I've got em in my family, in fact, most of my family is deep in it. Whenever they start to derp at me, I can only either shut down or try to gently provide a link to a news article or whatever which brings things back to reality, and then they shut down and change the subject. I think they must think that I'm not interested in politics since I don't really discuss things at length with them. I really can't without coming across as being unintentionally condescending, and I don't want that to happen.

Why don't Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn't grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man's record nor repudiate it.

dumbobruni:does anyone else remember liberals and the media declaring the GOP as in serious trouble after the 2008 elections?

I certainly do.

does anyone else remember the GOP cleaning the Democrats' clock in 2010?

I certainly do.

The thing is, the GOP is now kinda stuck with the Tea Party movement, which is able to motivate derptastic voters in certain Congressional districts, but cost them winnable Senate seats in '10 and '12. The House flipped in '10 because the conservative media turned up the derp to eleven, but that doesn't work in statewide elections.

Weaver95:syrynxx: They're just going to keep bitterly clinging to their guns and religion.

again, I was floored by the near complete lack of ground level organization among Team Romney supporters. they had fire, passion for their candidate...but no organization. their own ideology is central command driven, it doesn't teach them individual initiative. everything HAS to be approved by someone further up their chain of command and GOD help you if you do something without authorization. so in the end, they had a bunch of Romney voters standing around waiting for orders while Team Obama ran the table.

dumbobruni:does anyone else remember liberals and the media declaring the GOP as in serious trouble after the 2008 elections?

I certainly do.

does anyone else remember the GOP cleaning the Democrats' clock in 2010?

I certainly do.

Honestly, I'm writing off the House of Representatives to the GOP for a while. This is just a factor of geography and gerrymandering. The Senate will teeter back and forth maybe for a bit, too. But the Presidency or any other type of national election will be out of reach until the republicans understand what they are up against, and right now all signs point to the fact that they don't.

Weaver95:again, I was floored by the near complete lack of ground level organization among Team Romney supporters. they had fire, passion for their candidate...but no organization. their own ideology is central command driven, it doesn't teach them individual initiative. everything HAS to be approved by someone further up their chain of command and GOD help you if you do something without authorization. so in the end, they had a bunch of Romney voters standing around waiting for orders while Team Obama ran the table.

The Great Gazoo:dumbobruni: does anyone else remember liberals and the media declaring the GOP as in serious trouble after the 2008 elections?

I certainly do.

does anyone else remember the GOP cleaning the Democrats' clock in 2010?

I certainly do.

Honestly, I'm writing off the House of Representatives to the GOP for a while. This is just a factor of geography and gerrymandering. The Senate will teeter back and forth maybe for a bit, too. But the Presidency or any other type of national election will be out of reach until the republicans understand what they are up against, and right now all signs point to the fact that they don't.

Democrats could counter the geography and gerrymandering problems by increasing voter turnout in battleground districts.

turnout in 2010? just 41% of registered voters. in 2008 it was 62%, and this year it was 58%.

dumbobruni:does anyone else remember liberals and the media declaring the GOP as in serious trouble after the 2008 elections?

I certainly do.

does anyone else remember the GOP cleaning the Democrats' clock in 2010?

I certainly do.

I do....and I remember telling a lot of conservatives "You guys better be careful of those Tea Party idiots you're cultivating, because they're going to bite you in the ass if you're not careful," and getting a lot of condescending laughs and pats on my silly liberal head by GOPers who knew that they were going to use the Teahadists to win enough votes to show the Democrats what was what and then kick the Tea Party to the curb.

And here we are in 2012, after the Tea Party has destroyed whatever hope the Republicans might have had of taking back the White House because they DID show the Democrats what was what...and also the GOP who have no idea what hit them. Which doesn't mean much except I probably need to call Nate Silver and ask if his statistical model has room for a foolish prophetess who keeps saying no to some sun god.

I'm just gonna sit back, heartily and aggressively kick my fellow Dems and Indies in the ass when they get complacent, drink kamikazes, and watch the GOP continue to suck up xenomorph acid and call it Snapple.

I don't know if I can communicate to my townie pals right now. I have to wait a few weeks while their massive glummitude simmers down.

They know Karl Rove destroyed their political party, but I think that might be as far as they manage to go.

I get a very strong impression that they think the GOP needs to go even further right. It's amazing in a very unpleasant way just how lock-step the Republican philosophy has become.